Читать книгу Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning - Robert Browning - Страница 12

Table of Contents

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes

Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,

Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes

From out her hair; such balsam falls

Down sea-side mountain pedestals,5

From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,

Spent with the vast and howling main,

To treasure half their island-gain.

And strew faint sweetness from some old

Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud10

Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;

Or shredded perfume, like a cloud

From closet long to quiet vowed,

With mothed and dropping arras hung,

Moldering her lute and books among,15

As when a queen, long dead, was young.